Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
I think the local elections will be spotty, on the whole pretty good for Labour, LibDems and some Greens, but with enough exceptions for Johnson's team to shrug them off. Procrastinating Tory MPs will start talking about NEXT year's local elections as more important...
Which means another 12 months of terrible government, becuase the status quo isn't good for anyone (except Boris).
And whilst there is a window between May 2023 and "too late to faff around with a leadership challenge this close to a General Election", it's not a big one.
If the Conservatives want to procrastinate about dumping Big Scary Dog at the bottom of a canal, there will always be an excuse.
If we’re headed for a recession as it looks like we are the Tories are screwed
The Tories are screwed anyway. They've been in power for twelve years, alone or in coalition, which is about the length of time any party remains in power before going very stale. They have a poor leader, a poor frontbench, and poor ideas. They have faced one unprecedented (in modern times) crisis, and now have a second on their hands. The books are all scribbled in red crayon, and there are few positive signs for the economy. They have suffered several self-inflicted ad unforced wounds in succession.
They're screwed.
Starmer is as charismatic as a grey winter's day in Margate (and without the advantage of the Horny Visitor Centre). His idea of an inspirational vision is an overlong WORN essay. He does not do human. But those are about his main negatives. On the other hand, he does seem competent, and obviously has hidden political nous.
Against this iteration of the Conservative party, that should be more than enough.
Of course the only PM and party leader to win a general election after more than 10 years of their party in power since universal suffrage in 1918 was John Major in 1992.
So if Boris goes the Conservatives would need to find another Major, maybe Wallace or Javid?
Yes, but the '92 parliament kind-of proves my point. The Conservative Party was so tired that it was virtually ungovernable. I quite like Major, but I'd never, ever say that his government was anything other than poor. He tried, though.
The question is: would the Conservative Party (and the country) be in a better place if Kinnock had won in 1992, and the Conservative Party had been forced to change itself earlier? Or were the scandals between 1992 and 1997, along with Blairism, the kick in the backside they needed? (*)
Perhaps it would be best for the party you are so loyal to to lose, and pick up reinvigorated at the GE after next?
(*) The 'Kinnock wins in 1992' is quite an interesting alternate history - especially as he might not have had a large majority. We probably would not have had Blairism, for instance.
Indeed and Heseltine might have become Leader of the Opposition and beaten PM Kinnock in 1997 with largely Blairite policies anyway
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
So why lie about it? Very best case, it makes them look shambolic if they can't get it right about the whereabouts of their deputy head.
I think the local elections will be spotty, on the whole pretty good for Labour, LibDems and some Greens, but with enough exceptions for Johnson's team to shrug them off. Procrastinating Tory MPs will start talking about NEXT year's local elections as more important...
Currently the Conservatives are polling about 33% or 34%. So they will make losses this year as when the council seats up next week were last up in 2018 the Conservatives got 35% NEV.
However when the council seats up next year were last up in 2019 the Conservatives only got 28% NEV. So the Tories might even make gains in next year's local elections. So it is this summer or never if Tory MPs want to get rid of Boris before the next general election in 2024
It’s not just about nerve Mike, it’s about the replacement. I think Truss just blew it.
How did Truss blow it exactly?
By being on the same page as Joe Biden that we need to do more to support Ukraine?
That might upset a few who want Britain to be appeasers of Russia but I don't think many of those will have a say in the next Tory leadership race or be able to get one of their own to be Prime Minister - I'd certainly hope not.
Dude you’re the one who said this was the roaring twenties and Brexit was going to power us through. Bottom for GDP growth now, CoL crisis and inflation.
What say you?
I've told you a dozen plus times that was before Sunak shat the bed raising taxes. I even wrote a frigging header article on this site on the day of the Budget about it that was published here the next day that I know you responded to.
How many times are you going to ask the same thing? Raising taxes is screwing Britain over - it is wrong, counterproductive and shouldn't be happening. It trashes the economy by taking away people's disposable income that they can spend which creates the roaring twenties.
Sunak trashed it. Blame Sunak not me, I had no idea when I wrote that what a catastrophic own goal Sunak would do.
I told you Sunak was terrible over a year ago.
I'm not disagreeing since he raised NI. 🤷♂️
If like a goldfish you forget this conversation but again bring up the roaring twenties remark just don't be surprised when I yet again respond saying about Sunak raising taxes. That is the problem, the Chancellor, and it is why I quit the Tories despite once tipping Sunak for next PM at 250/1.
Thiis disgraceful doxxing must stop!!
Did I put my name there?
I don't mind you guys knowing who I am, I don't want my name used though. Is that really that complicated to understand?
If we’re headed for a recession as it looks like we are the Tories are screwed
The Tories are screwed anyway. They've been in power for twelve years, alone or in coalition, which is about the length of time any party remains in power before going very stale. They have a poor leader, a poor frontbench, and poor ideas. They have faced one unprecedented (in modern times) crisis, and now have a second on their hands. The books are all scribbled in red crayon, and there are few positive signs for the economy. They have suffered several self-inflicted ad unforced wounds in succession.
They're screwed.
Starmer is as charismatic as a grey winter's day in Margate (and without the advantage of the Horny Visitor Centre). His idea of an inspirational vision is an overlong WORN essay. He does not do human. But those are about his main negatives. On the other hand, he does seem competent, and obviously has hidden political nous.
Against this iteration of the Conservative party, that should be more than enough.
Tend to agree. Another 2 years of Boris and no change risks something approaching 1997, given the "Cost of Living Crisis."
The Tories need a new leader and a degree of reinvention or, at least, a doubling down on Levelling Up and the momentum that would provide. They won't win but would at least be competitive.
I suspect the local elections will, wrongly, be interpreted as the worst is over and a reason to stagger on with BJ.
Gove very quiet. Do we think he's cooking up something absolutely stunning on Levelling Up?
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
God, you guys are embarrassing yourselves. This is not about them having a candlelit dinner for 2, it is about allegedly being at the same work-related function. If all your points about a given subject are completely shit, keep quiet and change the subject.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
God, you guys are embarrassing yourselves. This is not about them having a candlelit dinner for 2, it is about allegedly being at the same work-related function. If all your points about a given subject are completely shit, keep quiet and change the subject.
They didn’t break any rules. Big G is saying they broke rules because they socialised.
My point is that they didn’t socialise when the meeting was finished. They hate each other
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I've been clear that Boris should resign over Partygate. But Labour's defence of the Durham event is no longer credible. Why did they lie about Angela Rayner's attendance if she - and they - were confident no rules were broken?
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Eh?
This is not difficult. If simultaneously SKS is inside a labour party building which is not in Westminster not in his or AR's constituency, then "she was *outside* the building" is a complete non point because either she was entering or had left the building, or we are looking at a coincidence on the level of winning the lottery 2 weeks running.
If we’re headed for a recession as it looks like we are the Tories are screwed
The Tories are screwed anyway. They've been in power for twelve years, alone or in coalition, which is about the length of time any party remains in power before going very stale. They have a poor leader, a poor frontbench, and poor ideas. They have faced one unprecedented (in modern times) crisis, and now have a second on their hands. The books are all scribbled in red crayon, and there are few positive signs for the economy. They have suffered several self-inflicted ad unforced wounds in succession.
They're screwed.
Starmer is as charismatic as a grey winter's day in Margate (and without the advantage of the Horny Visitor Centre). His idea of an inspirational vision is an overlong WORN essay. He does not do human. But those are about his main negatives. On the other hand, he does seem competent, and obviously has hidden political nous.
Against this iteration of the Conservative party, that should be more than enough.
Tend to agree. Another 2 years of Boris and no change risks something approaching 1997, given the "Cost of Living Crisis."
The Tories need a new leader and a degree of reinvention or, at least, a doubling down on Levelling Up and the momentum that would provide. They won't win but would at least be competitive.
I suspect the local elections will, wrongly, be interpreted as the worst is over and a reason to stagger on with BJ.
Gove very quiet. Do we think he's cooking up something absolutely stunning on Levelling Up?
Nope.
He is not in the Treasury so has no power basically.
More likely to be spending time metaphorically installing phones to be honest.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I've been clear that Boris should resign over Partygate. But Labour's defence of the Durham event is no longer credible. Why did they lie about Angela Rayner's attendance if she - and they - were confident no rules were broken?
No longer credible, sure Dan has new evidence to show rules were broken
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Eh?
This is not difficult. If simultaneously SKS is inside a labour party building which is not in Westminster not in his or AR's constituency, then "she was *outside* the building" is a complete non point because either she was entering or had left the building, or we are looking at a coincidence on the level of winning the lottery 2 weeks running.
Don’t know why you feel the need to be rude to me. Let’s have a respectable debate please.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
God, you guys are embarrassing yourselves. This is not about them having a candlelit dinner for 2, it is about allegedly being at the same work-related function. If all your points about a given subject are completely shit, keep quiet and change the subject.
They didn’t break any rules. Big G is saying they broke rules because they socialised.
My point is that they didn’t socialise when the meeting was finished. They hate each other
Really? If their host says Let's have a drink they are going to say One or the other of us, not both?
It’s not just about nerve Mike, it’s about the replacement. I think Truss just blew it.
How did Truss blow it exactly?
By being on the same page as Joe Biden that we need to do more to support Ukraine?
That might upset a few who want Britain to be appeasers of Russia but I don't think many of those will have a say in the next Tory leadership race or be able to get one of their own to be Prime Minister - I'd certainly hope not.
Dude you’re the one who said this was the roaring twenties and Brexit was going to power us through. Bottom for GDP growth now, CoL crisis and inflation.
What say you?
I've told you a dozen plus times that was before Sunak shat the bed raising taxes. I even wrote a frigging header article on this site on the day of the Budget about it that was published here the next day that I know you responded to.
How many times are you going to ask the same thing? Raising taxes is screwing Britain over - it is wrong, counterproductive and shouldn't be happening. It trashes the economy by taking away people's disposable income that they can spend which creates the roaring twenties.
Sunak trashed it. Blame Sunak not me, I had no idea when I wrote that what a catastrophic own goal Sunak would do.
I thought you were one of Sunak's leading cheerleaders? Your support for him was only surpassed by your last redoubt defence of The Clown, before even you realised defending him made you look a little silly. I also reacall you boasting how you had cleverly tipped Sunak for next PM? That one not looking so good now?
You have changed your name once, how about changing it to Barty Weathervane?
When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, sir?
I'm proud still of the tip for Sunak as next PM. As @MikeSmithson himself always say tips are about identifying value, not guaranteed winners, and there was value in tipping Sunak for next PM at 250/1. I even mentioned it in the tip as a potential trading bet, so anyone who backed that then later layed it off will have made a handsome profit thank you very much.
The Tories lost my support at the last Budget, because they went back on what they promised and what was in their manifesto which is what I believed in. Unlike partisan shills, I backed the Tories because I believed in what they were standing on, not because they were "my team" - so if you go against my beliefs, you lose my support.
I believe in what I believe in, not whatever a particular team stands for today. Currently no party represents my views, the Lib Dems would be closest but they're too NIMBY for me, so no party gets my support presently.
Having seen some of your views, I am sure they are not exactly crying in their soup.
Which views would those be perchance?
Try actual views, not your warped interpretation of my views because you can't get past my stance on Brexit.
Why did you return when you did with a different username? Was it because Johnson was being humiliated and you couldn't justify the the thousands of posts saying he was the best Prime Minister since Thatcher if not ever?
Surely posters should also have the courage of their convictions. Or at least the integrity you expect from other posters.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Eh?
This is not difficult. If simultaneously SKS is inside a labour party building which is not in Westminster not in his or AR's constituency, then "she was *outside* the building" is a complete non point because either she was entering or had left the building, or we are looking at a coincidence on the level of winning the lottery 2 weeks running.
But so what? It doesn’t prove they broke any rules
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Eh?
This is not difficult. If simultaneously SKS is inside a labour party building which is not in Westminster not in his or AR's constituency, then "she was *outside* the building" is a complete non point because either she was entering or had left the building, or we are looking at a coincidence on the level of winning the lottery 2 weeks running.
Don’t know why you feel the need to be rude to me. Let’s have a respectable debate please.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Eh?
This is not difficult. If simultaneously SKS is inside a labour party building which is not in Westminster not in his or AR's constituency, then "she was *outside* the building" is a complete non point because either she was entering or had left the building, or we are looking at a coincidence on the level of winning the lottery 2 weeks running.
Don’t know why you feel the need to be rude to me. Let’s have a respectable debate please.
I didn't think that was rude.
I can see the aggression coming off your posts. Let’s please be respectable
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
The problem Leon is that you make up everything. You’re entertaining to read but you’re playing a character.
Occasionally the mask slips and I see what you are.
"It was initially believed that the PM had been presented with a Union Jack cake while aides sang 'Happy Birthday' to him.
However, it has since emerged that the cake – bought by a special adviser – never even left its Tupperware box. Some sausage rolls from Marks and Spencer were laid out on the Cabinet table along with a few cans of Estrella lager, but it is believed that these too were left untouched. "
Say what you like about bojo, he sure knows how to party.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
So why lie about it? Very best case, it makes them look shambolic if they can't get it right about the whereabouts of their deputy head.
Shambolic is always my go to regarding politicians, civil servants and nearly anyone in public office.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
What evidence do you have that it became a social event?
Again, Starmer and Rayner hate each other. They don’t spend any time together at all outside of forced political things.
You’ll have to take my word on that but it comes from a close relative of Starmer
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
God, you guys are embarrassing yourselves. This is not about them having a candlelit dinner for 2, it is about allegedly being at the same work-related function. If all your points about a given subject are completely shit, keep quiet and change the subject.
They didn’t break any rules. Big G is saying they broke rules because they socialised.
My point is that they didn’t socialise when the meeting was finished. They hate each other
You are quite simply wrong on this event.
They were together and Labour confirm it
You may not like the fact that Starmer and Rayner are compromised and are now in a very embarrassing position but trying to dismiss it is not working
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
God, you guys are embarrassing yourselves. This is not about them having a candlelit dinner for 2, it is about allegedly being at the same work-related function. If all your points about a given subject are completely shit, keep quiet and change the subject.
They didn’t break any rules. Big G is saying they broke rules because they socialised.
My point is that they didn’t socialise when the meeting was finished. They hate each other
You are quite simply wrong on this event.
They were together and Labour confirm it
You may not like the fact that Starmer and Rayner are compromised and are now in a very embarrassing position but trying to dismiss it is not working
You are desperate and it shows.
Back onto ramping Johnson you are. Have a lovely day
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
Good points apart from abolishing charitable status for private schools.
That would see them cut the number of scholarships and bursaries they provide and become even more exclusive to the children of the rich and posh
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
What evidence do you have that it became a social event?
Again, Starmer and Rayner hate each other. They don’t spend any time together at all outside of forced political things.
You’ll have to take my word on that but it comes from a close relative of Starmer
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
Do you think the whole of the North of England is one small hamlet? She was just coincidentally passing a building which SKS happened to be inside? Again, what are the odds?
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
Eh?
This is not difficult. If simultaneously SKS is inside a labour party building which is not in Westminster not in his or AR's constituency, then "she was *outside* the building" is a complete non point because either she was entering or had left the building, or we are looking at a coincidence on the level of winning the lottery 2 weeks running.
But so what? It doesn’t prove they broke any rules
No it doesn't
This is not a calamity for labour, but it's embarrassing. If you asked me the single worst thing about Johnson I'd probably say "liar." That was SKS's edge over him. Now I am thinking it's not as clear as I thought it was, and I'm also thinking maybe SKS has tailored his attack over the last few months to emphasise other aspects of the thing rather than Boris's lies, because he thought he might be setting traps for himself.
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
What evidence do you have that it became a social event?
Again, Starmer and Rayner hate each other. They don’t spend any time together at all outside of forced political things.
You’ll have to take my word on that but it comes from a close relative of Starmer
Everybody knows that, you don't have to ask Starmer's mum
this is going in circles. I'm off to creosote my fences.
"It was initially believed that the PM had been presented with a Union Jack cake while aides sang 'Happy Birthday' to him.
However, it has since emerged that the cake – bought by a special adviser – never even left its Tupperware box. Some sausage rolls from Marks and Spencer were laid out on the Cabinet table along with a few cans of Estrella lager, but it is believed that these too were left untouched. "
Say what you like about bojo, he sure knows how to party.
Estrella is mild. You need quite a few cans to get a buzz on.
'La guerre doit se nourrir elle-même' as Napoleon said.
The result of that attitude was that British Army under Wellington was more welcome in parts of France than the French Army.
The British army paid in gold for food. The French Army, if the farmers were lucky, gave them bills on the government, for some of the value....
When I went to university in France my Marsellaise landlady used to compel obedience from her grandchildren by threatening them with some hypothetical English soldier. She was so ancient it could have been a folk memory from any Anglo-French conflict back to the War of the League of Cambrai.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
What evidence do you have that it became a social event?
Again, Starmer and Rayner hate each other. They don’t spend any time together at all outside of forced political things.
You’ll have to take my word on that but it comes from a close relative of Starmer
I know they do not get on, but at beergate they were together and the accusation is being made by Richard Holden MP as well as others that this was a social event
The event is being reviewed and it is clear Starmer and Rayner have questions to answer, not least why did Labour lie about her presence
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964. Cold War and the White Heat of the Technological Revolution.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
Oh for goodness sake Big G, having meeting was legal and so whether she was there or not is irrelevant. It is a smear to make all politicians look as bad as Boris.
The inference is the meeting had concluded and they should not have been socialising after
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
Starmer socialising with Rayner?
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
God, you guys are embarrassing yourselves. This is not about them having a candlelit dinner for 2, it is about allegedly being at the same work-related function. If all your points about a given subject are completely shit, keep quiet and change the subject.
They didn’t break any rules. Big G is saying they broke rules because they socialised.
My point is that they didn’t socialise when the meeting was finished. They hate each other
You are quite simply wrong on this event.
They were together and Labour confirm it
You may not like the fact that Starmer and Rayner are compromised and are now in a very embarrassing position but trying to dismiss it is not working
You are desperate and it shows.
Back onto ramping Johnson you are. Have a lovely day
I have not mentioned Boris who needs to go but you seem to want to shut down the issue as it is very inconvenient for labour
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
The problem Leon is that you make up everything. You’re entertaining to read but you’re playing a character.
Occasionally the mask slips and I see what you are.
He stopped being entertaining to read circa 2008. Few things worse than a comedy act gone stale.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
The more Big G insists he wants BoJo gone the less I believe him.
He was calling him amazing just two months ago
When it comes to the PM, I am in a constant state of amazement tbf.
Both our local conservative mps would affirm that I have text them frequently over the last few months to replace Boris
I want a conservative government in 24 and the best way to achieve that is for Boris to go
Last few months whilst you were saying he was great and Rishi should take over?
Hedging your bets?
Rishi's decided he is so fcked he might as well start Doing The Right Thing 4 hard Working Families, like a prominent chancellor from the 2000s, instead of showing his legs to the tory faithful. hence windfall tax on oil.
Remember just two days ago when the Tories here said this was economically clueless and a stupid idea. Labour has no policies?
Crickets now!
I’m no Tory but I think this idea is ridiculous. It’s smart politics but still a stupid idea.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
The more interesting one is authoritarian vs liberal democracy. With social media we probably also need to add in whether people want to live in reality or the story of their choice.
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
What evidence do you have that it became a social event?
Again, Starmer and Rayner hate each other. They don’t spend any time together at all outside of forced political things.
You’ll have to take my word on that but it comes from a close relative of Starmer
Everybody knows that, you don't have to ask Starmer's mum
this is going in circles. I'm off to creosote my fences.
I am still in touch with him. He sends best wishes but says his new job at the Council for the Preservation of Rural England leaves him little time to post here.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
The problem Leon is that you make up everything. You’re entertaining to read but you’re playing a character.
Occasionally the mask slips and I see what you are.
He stopped being entertaining to read circa 2008. Few things worse than a comedy act gone stale.
Much the same goes for the PM.
One of the things I've suspected for ages is that, because Boris hasn't really updated his act since he was at school, it wouldn't survive daily exposure.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
The more interesting one is authoritarian vs liberal democracy. With social media we probably also need to add in whether people want to live in reality or the story of their choice.
Cognitive elite V uneducated hoi polloi is another one. As predicted by Charles Murray
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
It is still relevant in economic terms, just at the moment so much of western politics is focused on cultural and social divisions more than the economic divisions which dominated 20th century politics.
Hence Warwick and Leamington and Richmond Park do not have Conservative MPs now but Burnley and Stoke do, which would have been unthinkable 50 years ago
Brazil 5/1 France 13/2 England 7/1 Spain 17/2 Argentina 10/1 Germany 11/1 Belgium 14/1 Netherlands 16/1 Portugal 16/1 Denmark 33/1 … Wales 350/1 … Ukraine 425/1 … Scotland 500/1 … New Zealand 2000/1
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
It's a great pleasure to be here with you all today. You know, things are changing fast. We live in a world of change. The silicon chip is changing our lives. Quality of life is becoming more and more important. Environment, conservation, problems of pollution, the future of our children, and our children's children. These are today's issues. There is, quite rightly, increasing concern about high-rise buildings. I'm happy to reassure you, members of the Architectural Association
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
The more interesting one is authoritarian vs liberal democracy. With social media we probably also need to add in whether people want to live in reality or the story of their choice.
Cognitive elite V uneducated hoi polloi is another one. As predicted by Charles Murray
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
The more interesting one is authoritarian vs liberal democracy. With social media we probably also need to add in whether people want to live in reality or the story of their choice.
Cognitive elite V uneducated hoi polloi is another one. As predicted by Charles Murray
Please not more promotion of racist and outdated understanding of IQ. We did that last week.
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
It’s not just about nerve Mike, it’s about the replacement. I think Truss just blew it.
How did Truss blow it exactly?
By being on the same page as Joe Biden that we need to do more to support Ukraine?
That might upset a few who want Britain to be appeasers of Russia but I don't think many of those will have a say in the next Tory leadership race or be able to get one of their own to be Prime Minister - I'd certainly hope not.
The Truss story prompted R4 Today to report on the UK’s “war aims” (sic). War aims? WAR AIMS?? The UK has war aims? That will be news to most folk. When did the UK declare war?
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
It is still relevant in economic terms, just at the moment so much if western politics is focused on cultural and social divisions more than the economic divisions which dominated 20th century politics.
Hence Putney and Richmond Park do not have Conservative MPs now but Burnley and Stoke do, which would have been unthinkable 50 years ago
While driving here in the USA I’ve been listening to ‘Undaunted Courage’, the biography of the great American explorer Meriwether Lewis. By Stephen ‘band of brothers’ Ambrose. Absolutely fascinating
It’s taught me much, not least that the division between Democrats and Republicans date from quite arcane Revolutionary views of the future USA, which bear no resemblance whatsoever to the present left/right Dem/GOP ideological battle
Lewis, by the way, committed violent suicide on the Natchez Trace at the age of 35, first using pistols then trying to cut himself to ribbons with a razor. Despite immense early achievement. I didn’t know that, either
Just read the Mail story. Seems the new allegation is that a Labour Press Secretary was marginally inaccurate several month ago on the whereabouts of Angela Rayner. Turns out she was outside the building when the beer photo was taken.
What, just passing by? What are the odds? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks past that one? OR she was outside it because she had just been or was about to be inside it?
As for "marginally inaccurate," bollocks. This was a big deal when the press sec said she wasn't there, not a routine court circular, and multiple people know exactly where Rayner is at all times when she's on the job - press secs, diary secs, grid planners, SKS, her.
You are doing a comical Ali. I want this to be a storm in a teacup as much as you do, but arguments which wouldn't get past a 5 year old don't help.
The press secretary said she wasn't at the meeting the photo was taken at. She wasn't. But it appears she was in the vicinity, Who's being the five year old?
She was at the meeting and this is the cause of this row
Labour have admitted she was present with Starmer, nothing to do with being outside
That was the Mail story this morning. OK so she was at the same work meeting as Starmer. Starmer drunk a beer, which wasn't a good idea from a perception point of view, and a Labour Press Secretary gave an inaccurate statement on Rayner's whereabouts. As far as we can tell, no rules were broken.
Is that a fair summary?
No - the work meeting concluded and they did not leave and it became a social event
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
They’re not revisiting the case and are just responding to a freedom of information request . Durham police have confirmed to the BBC that there is no review ongoing .
It’s not just about nerve Mike, it’s about the replacement. I think Truss just blew it.
How did Truss blow it exactly?
By being on the same page as Joe Biden that we need to do more to support Ukraine?
That might upset a few who want Britain to be appeasers of Russia but I don't think many of those will have a say in the next Tory leadership race or be able to get one of their own to be Prime Minister - I'd certainly hope not.
The Truss story prompted R4 Today to report on the UK’s “war aims” (sic). War aims? WAR AIMS?? The UK has war aims? That will be news to most folk. When did the UK declare war?
Truss just blew it.
You're mental.
Yes the UK has war aims. That won't be news to anyone who isn't wanting Putin to win the war.
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
https://twitter.com/ThomasPride/status/1519898855927603201 “If I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.” @BorisJohnson 2004.
Yesterday Johnson passed a law ...
... making it compulsory for voters to produce photo ID when voting.
It’s not just about nerve Mike, it’s about the replacement. I think Truss just blew it.
How did Truss blow it exactly?
By being on the same page as Joe Biden that we need to do more to support Ukraine?
That might upset a few who want Britain to be appeasers of Russia but I don't think many of those will have a say in the next Tory leadership race or be able to get one of their own to be Prime Minister - I'd certainly hope not.
The Truss story prompted R4 Today to report on the UK’s “war aims” (sic). War aims? WAR AIMS?? The UK has war aims? That will be news to most folk. When did the UK declare war?
Truss just blew it.
You're mental.
Yes the UK has war aims. That won't be news to anyone who isn't wanting Putin to win the war.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
It is still relevant in economic terms, just at the moment so much if western politics is focused on cultural and social divisions more than the economic divisions which dominated 20th century politics.
Hence Putney and Richmond Park do not have Conservative MPs now but Burnley and Stoke do, which would have been unthinkable 50 years ago
While driving here in the USA I’ve been listening to ‘Undaunted Courage’, the biography of the great American explorer Meriwether Lewis. By Stephen ‘band of brothers’ Ambrose. Absolutely fascinating
It’s taught me much, not least that the division between Democrats and Republicans date from quite arcane Revolutionary views of the future USA, which bear no resemblance whatsoever to the present left/right Dem/GOP ideological battle
Lewis, by the way, committed violent suicide on the Natchez Trace at the age of 35, first using pistols then trying to cut himself to ribbons with a razor. Despite immense early achievement. I didn’t know that, either
The Republicans didn't exist at that time. They were a northern anti-slavery party ("party of Lincoln") that came into existence in the years running up to the Civil War. The party moved to the right of the Democrats in response to the Democrats adopting more left wing policies under FDR and then civil rights policies, which saw the Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) split with Northern Democrats, and the Republicans hoovered up their voters (no pun intended) under Nixon's "Southern strategy", continued under Reagan and subsequently.
Yeah I think it's incredibly rude and disrespectful to be honest.
It now comes across as bullying.
I agree. He has changed his handle and made a perfectly courteous and civil request not to have his old username used here yet ever now and then someone thinks it’s oh so funny to ignore that.
In making the case for selling Channel 4, Nadine Dorries points to the success of Channel 5's privatisation, not once, but twice. Channel 5 has never been owned by the government. https://t.co/Ru927I9dO7
It's an exact mirror image of the amusing spectacle on here the other day when one PBer used a nationalised railway as a poster child for the safety benefits of rail privatisation.
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
This is clearly the work of Lyhton Crosby's henchmen engaged at Downing Street, in conjunction with Dacre. It is quite a clever, if disingenuous tactic. If Boris Johnson can't be whitewashed, cover the opposition with confected ordure and a plague on both their houses.
At the moment there is nothing more important in the realms of UK Government than "saving Big Dog". The PB Johnsonian Tories have bought into it with enthusiasm.
But I’m sure it’s never had sex with a pig. Yeah I’m sure too, but get him to come to a microphone and deny it. Lol
But, as I told you last night Pete, the right way to deal with these things is rebutt rebutt rebutt, labour should have cleared it up today, they should have set the record straight, where mail is lying write public letter to editor bullet pointing the lies, speak to the regulator, get lawyers involved. I suggest their response today has been weak
Apparently it was an 'honest mistake' when they said Ms. Rayner wasn't there....
Oh, what a surprise.
If you’re going to go in really hard on your political opponents, for relative trivialities from two years ago, then you’d better be sure that you’re whiter than white yourself.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Durham police not going after Starmer as it would be selective, as would have been Cummings case, is problematic. How many parties/events from 2020 are the met investigating?
I really do not know but this has the potential to become a story of one rule for the PM and another for the leader and deputy leader of the labour party
It does. But the problem the Tories have here is that Johnson broke the rules he imposed on everyone else and Starmer didn’t. However much the Mail might dissemble in seeking to show otherwise, that’s the bottom line.
Do you really believe that
Starmer backed the law and indeed wanted stronger restrictions and this event does seem to breach the rules at the time but Durham Police have effectively called it a timed out event when the Met Police correctly hand Boris a FPN
Even if Durham Police behaved correctly (does that imply the Med did not?), the whole thing looks highly dodgy.
Starmer's main selling point is that he is not a clown, but a highly-experienced, highly-competent lawyer. It's fair enough saying that Johnson should have known the law because he drafted it; Starmer should have known because that's his USP.
Starmer did know the law - because Durham Police investigated and found nothing wrong first time round nor are they investigating it a second time regardless of what Guido read into that FOI request
All I'm seeing with the continual focus on this non-event is that the Tories are desperate to deflect the blame and don't have anything to work with..
That’s not really the point. Look at Big_G - he doesn’t want BJ as PM (I think) but he obviously thinks this should be investigated further. There are going to be a fair few people who look at this and think SKS’s a sanctimonious hypocrite. Given Labour already has a certain branding problem in that department, it’s not helpful.
Yes, a few Tories will pretend they are worried about justice not being done. The vast majority of people will see the Mail campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to negate the very damaging fact that the vast majority of the electorate believe the leader of the Conservative party is a grifting liar.
But the Tories won't go into the next election with their "grifting liar".
Labour will go into it with their sanctimonious hypocrite of a leader and his "hmmmmm....." deputy.
We'll see. But I do agree that dyed-in-the-wool Tories hate Starmer in a way they have not hated a Labour leader for a long time.
Absurd. I’m not a Tory. Yet I revile the left pretty much in its entirety - certainly the elite. So you could say I’m definitely on the right (whatever these terms mean any more, increasingly very little)
I loathed Corbyn, and I mean LOATHED. His election would have filled me with fear and anger
If Starmer, his immediate successor, is elected, I will sigh and feel a little gloomy but get on with my life 10 minutes later
That's a strange comment from @SouthamObserver which is plainly completely misguided.
Tories loathe Starmer more than Corbyn? Weird.
They may not much like Starmer - as he's Labour - but he's not the existential threat to our values that Corbyn appeared to be. For instance, Sir Keir has been pretty solid on Ukraine. Nah, from a dyed-in-the-wool Tory perspective Labour could have done a lot worse.
@SouthamObserver is one of those strange people who puts party loyalty above country. He hates all Tories and he hates, especially, popular Tories that win elections (like Thatcher or Boris). He presumes others are as deviant as him. We are not
The Tories are tired, corrupt and they’ve run out of ideas. It is time for someone else. I really really wish the alternative was more inspiring than Kir Royale Starmer but he’s orders of magnitude preferable to Corbyn.
That said, I can still see Boris sneaking a win in 2024. Partly because Starmer is so dreary. Also because the times are so strange. We could be deeply immersed in ongoing cold/hot war in 2024
At least be doesn’t pretend. You’re one of the biggest Tories on this site
In my life I’ve voted
Tory Green Lib Dem English Democrat Mebyon Kernow UKIP And Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
News just in that you lose your bet, most people are not like you.....
I hope not, for their sake
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
There is a lot of truth in what @Leon says, irrespective of how many people might be like him.
My girlfriend claims to be left-wing Labour, yet I as a centrist liberal am well to the 'left' of her on the majority of issues especially civil liberties and Law and Order. The only significant one where I am much to the right of her is economics, which of course is the old left/right yardstick.
And that explains my own indifference to Labour - unless they are led by a Corbyn they are generally to the right of me. Blair certainly was.
Comments
You are the 5 year old with chocolate all over your face contending that you haven't been at the Easter eggs.
And whilst there is a window between May 2023 and "too late to faff around with a leadership challenge this close to a General Election", it's not a big one.
If the Conservatives want to procrastinate about dumping Big Scary Dog at the bottom of a canal, there will always be an excuse.
🟥🟥
6️⃣🟥
quordle.com
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In the interest of transparency.
Is that a fair summary?
It does seem there is denial from Labour supporters that this event was in breach of covid regulations and if so a full investigation and review is something which they should not worry about
The British army paid in gold for food. The French Army, if the farmers were lucky, gave them bills on the government, for some of the value....
I know your knowledge of Labour politics is terrible but even you must know they don’t socialise at all. They hate each other
However when the council seats up next year were last up in 2019 the Conservatives only got 28% NEV. So the Tories might even make gains in next year's local elections. So it is this summer or never if Tory MPs want to get rid of Boris before the next general election in 2024
My point is that they didn’t socialise when the meeting was finished. They hate each other
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
1h
I've been clear that Boris should resign over Partygate. But Labour's defence of the Durham event is no longer credible. Why did they lie about Angela Rayner's attendance if she - and they - were confident no rules were broken?
He is not in the Treasury so has no power basically.
More likely to be spending time metaphorically installing phones to be honest.
Surely posters should also have the courage of their convictions. Or at least the integrity you expect from other posters.
Tory
Green
Lib Dem
English Democrat
Mebyon Kernow
UKIP
And
Binface
I’ve also abstained several times, on principle. And I’ve never been a member of ANY party
If that makes me ‘a Tory’ then you’re just being juvenile and tiresome in defining anyone who ‘doesn’t support Labour’ as ‘Tory’
Incidentally I do believe we are fast approaching the time when the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ must be retired. They date from the French Revolution. What do they even mean any more?
eg take me
I’m an old school feminist. I’m quite environmentalist (save our rivers!). I’m highly relaxed about ‘most’ immigration. I regret the loss of EU Freedom of Movement. I dislike private education and would take away the charitable status of public schools - let ‘em sink or swim. I despise the way the poshos are dominating the arts, I’d abolish unpaid internships. I want more social mobility. So I’m on the left?
And yet I also favour lower taxes, and I approve of capitalism, and I’m patriotic, pro-western, and quite libertarian… yet I would shoot - metaphorically - people that litter our streets, graffiti our walls, and build horrible buildings. And I sincerely believe Wokery is an intense, mortal threat to the Enlightenment, and that most people are just too dumb or lazy to realise this, yet
I also wonder if we are being visited by aliens
In short I’m an absurd mix of beliefs, on a traditional left/right spectrum, with notions that could have been plucked from Jeremy Corbyn to David Icke, and all stations between. I bet most people are like me. A total mix that makes a left/right dichotomy old fashioned to the point of idiocy
The accusation by Richard Holden MP is that covid regulations were broken and while the police dismissed the request to review in February they are revisiting the case
Occasionally the mask slips and I see what you are.
"It was initially believed that the PM had been presented with a Union Jack cake while aides sang 'Happy Birthday' to him.
However, it has since emerged that the cake – bought by a special adviser – never even left its Tupperware box. Some sausage rolls from Marks and Spencer were laid out on the Cabinet table along with a few cans of Estrella lager, but it is believed that these too were left untouched. "
Say what you like about bojo, he sure knows how to party.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Again, Starmer and Rayner hate each other. They don’t spend any time together at all outside of forced political things.
You’ll have to take my word on that but it comes from a close relative of Starmer
They were together and Labour confirm it
You may not like the fact that Starmer and Rayner are compromised and are now in a very embarrassing position but trying to dismiss it is not working
Back onto ramping Johnson you are. Have a lovely day
That would see them cut the number of scholarships and bursaries they provide and become even more exclusive to the children of the rich and posh
This is not a calamity for labour, but it's embarrassing. If you asked me the single worst thing about Johnson I'd probably say "liar." That was SKS's edge over him. Now I am thinking it's not as clear as I thought it was, and I'm also thinking maybe SKS has tailored his attack over the last few months to emphasise other aspects of the thing rather than Boris's lies, because he thought he might be setting traps for himself.
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
this is going in circles. I'm off to creosote my fences.
The event is being reviewed and it is clear Starmer and Rayner have questions to answer, not least why did Labour lie about her presence
In 1959, Supermac won 365 seats for the Conservatives. Just like Boris.
(cue music from The Twilight Zone...)
But my point is good. Drill down into people and you mostly get a huge variety of opinions that cannot easily be slotted into ‘left’ or ‘right’
Look at the recent French elex. They were presented as ‘centre left’ v ‘hard right’ but by many traditional definitions Le Pen is to the left of Macron
This left-right shit is boring and old and needs to go
% saying the following would be better than [Labour equivalent] at managing the economy
Conservatives: 28%
Conservatives led by Boris Johnson: 24%
Boris Johnson: 21%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/04/29/economic-competence-what-difference-does-who-you-a https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1519974561839816705/photo/1
Hopefully next election day will be as interesting.
One of the things I've suspected for ages is that, because Boris hasn't really updated his act since he was at school, it wouldn't survive daily exposure.
Hence Warwick and Leamington and Richmond Park do not have Conservative MPs now but Burnley and Stoke do, which would have been unthinkable 50 years ago
Brazil 5/1
France 13/2
England 7/1
Spain 17/2
Argentina 10/1
Germany 11/1
Belgium 14/1
Netherlands 16/1
Portugal 16/1
Denmark 33/1
…
Wales 350/1
…
Ukraine 425/1
…
Scotland 500/1
…
New Zealand 2000/1
Desperate, desperate stuff.
You know, things are changing fast.
We live in a world of change.
The silicon chip is changing our lives.
Quality of life is becoming more and more important.
Environment, conservation, problems of pollution, the future of our children, and our children's children.
These are today's issues.
There is, quite rightly, increasing concern about high-rise buildings.
I'm happy to reassure you, members of the Architectural Association
I'm so sorry. This is yesterday's speech.
Cloudless, yet not 15°C. Which magnificent beach shall I walk to?
Truss just blew it.
It’s taught me much, not least that the division between Democrats and Republicans date from quite arcane Revolutionary views of the future USA, which bear no resemblance whatsoever to the present left/right Dem/GOP ideological battle
Lewis, by the way, committed violent suicide on the Natchez Trace at the age of 35, first using pistols then trying to cut himself to ribbons with a razor. Despite immense early achievement. I didn’t know that, either
Yes the UK has war aims. That won't be news to anyone who isn't wanting Putin to win the war.
Peter Foster
@pmdfoster
·
3h
Replying to
@pmdfoster
@Jacob_Rees_Mogg and @GeorgeWParker
If there is a health scare or animal disease outbreak, the government cannot say it wasn't warned by the professional.
@uttoxeterjames
of the BVA calls it a "deeply misguided" action since UK has left EU’s "inegrated and highly responsive surveillance systems"
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1519930588718944256
Can you not respect his wishes.
It now comes across as bullying.
LAB: 40% (-)
CON: 35% (+1)
LDEM: 9% (-1)
GRN: 6% (+1)
via @techneUK, 27 - 28 Apr
https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2022/03/what-do-the-latest-polls-say-britain-elects/
https://twitter.com/ThomasPride/status/1519898855927603201
“If I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.”
@BorisJohnson
2004.
Yesterday Johnson passed a law ...
... making it compulsory for voters to produce photo ID when voting.
Yeah I’m sure too, but get him to come to a microphone and deny it. Lol
But, as I told you last night Pete, the right way to deal with these things is rebutt rebutt rebutt, labour should have cleared it up today, they should have set the record straight, where mail is lying write public letter to editor bullet pointing the lies, speak to the regulator, get lawyers involved. I suggest their response today has been weak
My girlfriend claims to be left-wing Labour, yet I as a centrist liberal am well to the 'left' of her on the majority of issues especially civil liberties and Law and Order. The only significant one where I am much to the right of her is economics, which of course is the old left/right yardstick.
And that explains my own indifference to Labour - unless they are led by a Corbyn they are generally to the right of me. Blair certainly was.